CALVIN KLEIN 205W39NYC Visits Ghosts of Americana in Our Latest Editorial

Our latest in-house editorial, “American Phantasm,” homages the decaying landscape of American roadside attractions through CALVIN KLEIN 205W39NYC’s Fall/Winter 2018 collection. Once thriving businesses that provided familial entertainment during long haul drives, roadside attractions mark a bygone era of “Baby Boomer” Americana, when Route 66 flourished as a main highway for vacationing tourists. Today, their existence serve as ghosts of an America no longer recognized by the younger generation, regarded instead as odd novelties or nostalgic emblems by passersby.

The collection presents the third chapter of Raf Simons‘ vision for Calvin Klein, referencing the days of the ’60s Space Race, Western pioneers and modern-day technological warfare. Building on previous seasons, the collection ties in recurring CK sartorial tropes such as Simons’ trademark Western shirts and side-stripe trousers, cowboy boots and statement outerwear. Key pieces include bright orange firefighter chore coats, burnished leather trenches and droopy knits featuring Looney Tunes characters Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner. Statement accessories such as the knit ski masks, space goggles, clunky thigh-high fire boots and metallic astronaut gloves continue to hit on different narratives of the American Dream, collaging them into a reinvigorated, futuristic fantasy.